Bible Strands
Ezekiel 23:30
have brought these things upon you, because you have prostituted yourself with the nations and defiled yourself with their idols.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — God addresses the prophetic recipient (Jerusalem, symbolized as Oholibah) at the moment of pronouncing the consequences of her idolatrous alliances. The declaration follows the exposure of her shame and precedes the transfer of the cup of judgment to her.
The words — זְנוֹתֵךְ (z.no.te/Kh) = acted as a prostitute, and נִטְמֵאת (nit.Met) = you made yourself unclean. These terms anchor the verse’s explicit cause-and-effect structure.
The thread — The pattern of foreign mingling and custom adoption appears in Psalms 106:35. The displacement to foreign lands and subsequent divine remembrance is noted in Ezekiel 6:9. Jeremiah 2:18 poses rhetorical questions about seeking water from Egypt and Assyria.
Why it lands — It requires the reader to trace the direct line from idolatrous alliances to exposed shame and divine judgment. The text demands acknowledgment that defilement precedes punishment, leaving no room for separating spiritual unfaithfulness from its historical consequences.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
I will do these things unto thee, because thou hast gone a whoring after the heathen, and because thou art polluted with their idols.
Cross-references
- Ezekiel 6:9 Then in the nations to which they have been carried captive, your survivors will remember Me—how I have been grieved by their adulterous hearts that turned away from Me, and by their eyes that lusted after idols. So they will loathe themselves for the evil they have done and for all their abominations.
- Psalms 106:35 but they mingled with the nations and adopted their customs.
- Jeremiah 2:18 Now what will you gain on your way to Egypt to drink the waters of the Nile? What will you gain on your way to Assyria to drink the waters of the Euphrates?
- Jeremiah 22:8 And many nations will pass by this city and ask one another, ‘Why has the LORD done such a thing to this great city?’
- Ezekiel 23:7 She offered sexual favors to all the elite of Assyria. She defiled herself with all the idols of those for whom she lusted.
- Ezekiel 23:12 She too lusted after the Assyrians—governors and commanders, warriors dressed in splendor, horsemen riding on steeds, all desirable young men.
- Jeremiah 16:11 Then you are to answer them: ‘It is because your fathers have forsaken Me, declares the LORD, and followed other gods, and served and worshiped them. They abandoned Me and did not keep My instruction.